


Wait for Me to Come Home

by cedarmoons



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angsty Schmoop, Character Death, Dread Pup as adorable babby who grows on him, Ft. Solas as 'I cannot be a parent this was a terrible idea', Kid Fic, Shipping Spy as Surana who calls Solas out on his BS quite regularly, The Author Regrets Nothing, Trespasser DLC spoilers, and more colorful characters who help solas realize his plan is dumb
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-04-25 23:33:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4981039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cedarmoons/pseuds/cedarmoons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trespasser spoilers. For the kinkmeme. Ellana dies after speaking with Solas, but he agrees to honor her dying wish: to raise their two-year-old daughter. As it turns out, he may have bitten off more than he can chew. </p><p>Being a father was not meant to go hand-in-hand with restoring the People, it seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> general disclaimer - i have never interacted with small children, ever, and i have no idea how they act, think, or talk, at all. it's gonna be a wild ride, folks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly someone must get me out of the kinkmeme i cannot find my way out of the maze of amazing solavellan / sovelyan prompts
> 
> enjoy the babby fic i am unashamed

“Solas,” she gasps, her eyes glowing eerie Fade green as her arm disintegrates. Solas can feel her lifeblood pulsing out of her as surely as he can feel his own heart, clenched tight as though she’s reached in and wrapped her fist around the muscle. “Solas, I have to tell you—”

Dorian’s voice is furious as it emanates from the crystal necklace resting over her bruised sternum.  _Ellie, don’t do this. Please, don’t tell this madman anything—_

Ellana ignores him. She cups Solas’s neck with her good hand, bringing his head down to rest his forehead against hers. Solas’s jaw is clenched tight as he does his damndest to ignore the burning in his eyes. “Our daughter,” she says, and ice freezes in his veins at those two simple words.

He had known, of course, his spies had reported on her safe birth over a year and a half ago. And still, as Ellana confesses her existence to Solas, it feels as though he is dreaming, as if this hypothetical daughter will cease to exist if he only does not think of her.

“Our daughter. She’s beautiful. Siona. Don’t let her grow up without a father. Don’t let her—” she throws her head back with a pained cry as the remnants of the Anchor’s magic pulses within her, its traces too deeply embedded in her body to go with the rest of the power he’d taken from her. “Promise me,” she gasps, and blood begins to trickle from her nose. “Solas, please, ma fen, ma vhenan, take care of her—”

He closes his eyes and brushes his lips against her bloody ones. “I promise, ma vhenan,” he whispers, cupping the back of her head. Her blood stains his armor, and tears burn tracks down his cheek and throat, but he cannot bring himself to care. He closes his eyes and presses his face against her hair, trying to smell the jasmine underneath the blood and sweat and rot of death.

“Please, vhenan. Fight. Do not leave me alone in this world. Please. I beg you,” he pleads, even as her fingers tighten and then fall slack. He weeps, shoulders shaking with the force of his sobs, and cradles her to him, hands gripping cooling, bruised skin.

When he opens his eyes, it is as if the Crossroads itself, once vibrant and full of life, has gone dull and gray with her death. He looks at his surroundings and sees only the devastation his pride had wrought. He looks at her and sees the loss of this one good thing this broken world had.

Some cool, distant part of him notes that it should be easier to go on with his plans. Dorian and Cassandra cannot hope to draw him from his path, not as she did. It will be easier, he knows, letting this world perish so he can resurrect Arlathan. But he looks at her face, so peaceful and relieved ( _relief_ , that is what will destroy him when he is alone in his bed and unable to sleep) in death, and he cannot breathe. He cannot think. All he can do is feel. All he can do is bow his head and let the grief and pain and guilt he’d pushed away for two years wash over him like the incessant waves of high tide.

He weeps until his eyes are puffy and itch for want of tears, until his hands’ shaking slows to a small tremble, until he is certain that he can push away the pain in his chest so it does not feel as though his heart is rending itself into ribbons.

He gathers Ellana’s body and walks the path she had taken, weaving between the petrified Qunari until he reaches the locked eluvian. He will bring her back to her friends, to her family, so that they can bury and mourn her properly. He owes her much more than that, but he will never have another chance to atone for his crimes against her.

When he steps through, only one waits for him. Iron Bull is watching the sunset, his greataxe sheathed on his back. When the eluvian closes behind Solas, he turns around and takes in the Inquisitor’s broken body with more than a soft exhale. 

“Hey, Solas,” Bull says, and rubs his jaw. “So. Gonna destroy the world, huh? Gotta admit, I didn’t see that coming.”

“You were not the only one,” he replies, thinking of the visible heartbreak on her face when he’d revealed his plans to her. A beat passes, and then another, while Solas waits for the inevitable fight. When Bull doesn’t move, only watches him with an inscrutable expression, he narrows his eyes. “You know my intentions, and yet you have not attacked me?”

Bull grunts. “What, and end up like the other guys? I’ll pass. Suicide’s not my thing.”

It is painful to swallow as Solas glances back down at Ellana’s still body. He steps toward Bull, his arms lifting, and the Qunari takes her from him. She looks like a babe in the man’s arms. 

Solas steps back, clenching his jaw to keep from breaking down into tears again. He feels her absence like a lesion on his soul. “I could not save her. The Anchor was too deeply embedded, and her mortal body could not handle it. I… she deserves a burial.” 

_She deserved more. She deserved better. She deserved happiness and life and I snatched them away like a thief in the night—_

He turns away, and he must, or else he will fall to his knees and not get up.  _I must endure,_  he tells himself, repeating the thought with every new step.

“Hey, Solas,” Bull says, as he turns away, and Solas stops. “This isn’t the Fade, is it? No demons or creepy shit running around?”

Solas shakes his head. “No. The Crossroads is a realm entirely separate, and yet intrinsically connected to the Fade—” He stops as a thought occurs to him. “Iron Bull. You knew…” he says, turning around, his eyes narrowed. “Where are the others? Surely she did not travel with you as her lone companion.”

Bull doesn’t even blink. He adjusts Ellana so he is holding her with one arm—and his arm is huge enough to accomplish such a feat—and scratches his chin with his free hand, as casually as discussing the weather. “Nah, but there wasn’t much of a threat anyway. Thanks for that, by the way. She was just concerned with getting to you. She didn’t want the Viddasala to kill you. Even after all you did, she still put you first.”

Solas goes cold. “Iron Bull. Where are the others?”

Bull’s lone eye is steely and cold. “We’re both smart guys, Solas,” he says. “I think we both know how much of a shitty dad you’d be.”

“Oh?” He clasps his hands behind his back, struggling to hide his agitation. Bull puts it more crassly than he would’ve, but the Qunari is right. Solas has no need to care for or desire to meet this child. His plans are bigger than this Siona, bigger than any dreams or desires his foolish heart may want.

And still.  _Promise me._

“No one’s letting you anywhere near Sia,” Bull grunts, rubbing at his cheek again. “I think we both know that you were expecting that. You broke Ellana’s heart, Solas, and now you want to kill everyone because they’re not like your magical elves from the past.”

The pieces click into place.

_Siona’s in Skyhold. If they try to stop you, please—ma lath. Solas. Please don’t hurt them. Don’t—_

Cole must have been with them—there was no other possible alternative. No one else could possibly aid Dorian or anyone else in navigating the Crossroads, not in the manner required to find Skyhold’s eluvian. And now they intended to steal his daughter from him.

Solas curses, bitterly, and spares one last look at his broken and damaged heart in the Qunari’s arms before he’s turning on his heel, towards where he knows Skyhold’s eluvian rests. He shifts without a conscious thought. As fur sprouts from his skin and Bull swears in surprise behind him, Solas lands on all fours. Tilting his head back, he allows a single, grief-filled howl to pierce the air, and runs.

He has only thought of the girl a handful of times over the last year—to think of anything else, such as what her eyes might look like or what her first words may be, was quickly discovered to be a terrible idea—but this thought, the thought that he might lose any chance he has of ever holding his daughter, terrifies him.

And it should not. It should not, he knows, and yet the thought of never seeing if Siona has Ellana’s eyes or his puts a strange weight on his chest, unyielding as stone.

He has promised Ellana, he tells himself as he runs, and he owes it to her to keep at least one of his promises, though it comes too late.

Skyhold’s eluvian is darkened, but it opens on his command.

He shifts as he jumps through the eluvian, and runs into a man lifting an axe over his head. Presumably to shatter the eluvian.  _Clever_ , Solas thinks, and catches the man’s wrist as it comes down. The guard’s eyes widen, his mouth opening to shout a warning, and that Solas cannot allow. But he also knows that he does not need bloodshed for this.

_Don’t hurt them._

“Sleep,” he says, meeting the man’s eyes, and the guard slumps against him. Solas catches his dead weight and lowers him on the floor, taking the axe and kicking it across the floor. He stands up and crosses his arms behind his back, watching the man sleep with a carefully arranged, coolly disinterested mask.

What he has done is another promise he can keep to Ellana. Still, the thought leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. He had made many other promises to her, many other, worthier promises, none of which he had kept. And now she would never—he squeezes his eyes shut and presses his knuckles against his brow, breathing through the looming threat of tears.

He cannot focus on her death now. There are more important things to think on. Things that  _matter._  What he has been thinking ever since Ellana died with a relieved smile on her face are irrelevant to his goals, and must be pushed aside.

And right now, his goal is preventing Dorian from spiriting his daughter away, to a place he will never find.

He hesitates, knowing that it would be better if he allowed Dorian to succeed. The only reason Siona’s existence hasn’t thrown a wrench into his plans is because he has forced himself to forget she exists, but with every breath he draws it seems the fragile idea of his daughter solidifies in his mind.

A child would unnecessarily complicate things. At the very least, this mortal girl-child would change his plans and he would have to make the necessary adjustments. At most, she would compromise his resolve, moreso than Ellana had.

It would be better to go back through the eluvian and forget what he had told his heart as she died in his arms. 

But he is sick of his lies, and he is curious, despite it all. With a heavy heart, and perhaps against his better judgement, Solas strengthens his mask of cool disinterest and turns his eyes to Skyhold’s garden.

The yard is deserted, but the garden is full of blooms. Solas longs to stop among the plants, to look at the new roses Ellana had introduced this year and marvel at their beauty, as he once had in a time that feels so long ago. But every second is precious, and so he enters the Great Hall without looking at Ellana’s garden.

Cassandra is his first obstacle. 

The Seeker stands in the center of the great hall, and when she sees him she grunts as she unsheathes her sword and levels it at him. “No further, Fen’Harel,” she says, and from her lips his title is the curse it was meant to be.

Solas cannot stop his flinch. “Seeker,” he murmurs, and the feeling that curls through him as he folds his hands behind his back and glances down is strangely akin to shame. It is the same feeling as the one that had curdled his blood when Ellana had shouted  _I would have had you_ _ **trust**_ _me!_

Even now, her rebuke rings in his ears. 

No. 

No, he cannot think of it. He cannot think of her. He can only focus on the goal in front of him: getting past Cassandra, and getting to Siona before she is lost to him.

“Seeker,” he says again, and this time his voice is stronger. He looks up. Cassandra hasn’t moved. Her sword arm is unwavering, her eyes blazing with the same righteous anger that fueled her fighting. He sighs. “This does not need to end in bloodshed.”

“You are correct,” she says, surprising him. “Give up your mad quest. Allow us to place safeguards to watch over you, or turn yourself into the Inquisition’s custody. Swear to never seek Siona out. Do so and this ends peacefully.”

“I cannot do such a thing, Seeker. Please, step aside. The Inquisitor—”

“Her name was  _Ellana!_ ” Cassandra snaps, so angrily it takes him aback. “She was my trusted friend! When you left her in the grove, I kept her from being reckless in the field. I protected her when you left her alone and hurt and confused. And now you want her daughter, the light that kept her strong? No, Fen’Harel. I will not allow it. I can do that much for her.”

It feels as though she has kicked him in the chest. Her words are nothing Solas has not told himself, and still they sting, like an unexpected blow. He stares at her, momentarily speechless, and then he sets his mouth into a thin line. “Apologies, Seeker,” he says. “I do not have time for this.”

The Smite hits him unexpectedly, as solidly as if Blackwall had rammed into him with his shield, in full armor. Solas gasps, reaches for magic that isn’t there, and Cassandra shouts as she charges toward him. Solas watches her close their short distance with increasing worry, tugging at the Fade in his veins until— _there._

He breaks the Smite’s seal on his well of power, and his eyes flash as he Fade-steps past her swing. If he had taken any longer, her blade would have cut through him, and his life would have been forfeit.

He stops just behind her, and disarms her with a flick of his wrist. Cassandra turns, wide-eyed, and for the first time he sees fear in the woman’s eyes.

It gives him no pleasure to see it. If anything, it twists his gut and makes him nauseous. “Sleep,” he murmurs, and Cassandra’s eyes roll into the back of her head as she slumps over. He catches her as he did the guard, kicking her sword and shield out of the way to rest her gently on the ground. 

He still remembers his conversations with Cassandra, long talks about faith and the perspective of truth and the nature of people. Their conversations had been one of the many things he had enjoyed most during his time at Skyhold.

Cassandra’s trust in him is, undoubtedly, broken, and unrepairable. He would not have such talks with her, or anyone, in Arlathan restored, and that knowledge leaves a bitter taste in his mouth and a weight in his soul.

“Ir abelas, ma falon,” he says, with no small touch of regret in his voice. “I will remember you.” 

He stands up and clasps his hands behind his back, leaving the Great Hall to stand on the grand staircase. The courtyard is deserted, though it shows signs of life: smoke from the tavern, and nickers of horses from the stables. It seems that Skyhold has been warned of his presence, and the civilians left behind had been told to hide, the guards told not to engage him.

It makes his task easier, though the sight of Skyhold’s courtyard barren once more is strange. He had grown used to seeing it bustling with training soldiers, or chatting servants, or Ellana making her rounds and socializing with the faces she didn’t recognize.

Solas closes his eyes and collects himself, taking a short breath. He did not come here for nostalgia.

He turns toward the great gate, the only entrance into Skyhold, and his eyes flash blue. The ground shudders as ice frosts over the grass and dirt, expanding and stretching until the ice forms an ankle-height wall, white tendrils wrapping around the portcullis grates. The wall expands up, and up, until the entire gate is coated in a sheet of ice, radiating wards that will alert him if anyone tries to melt it.

If whoever is with Siona has not left Skyhold, they will be hard-pressed to find an exit route he is not already aware of. Solas turns back to the Great Hall, and carries Cassandra to rest in front of a hearth.

When the Seeker is safely put away, Solas moves toward the door that leads to Ellana’s chambers.  _It is a logical first step,_  he tells himself as he rests the hand on the doorknob.  _Siona likely spent her nights with her mother._

Another thought, smaller yet more insistent, laughs.  _Do you truly believe that? Perhaps you only wish to see how her room has changed. Two years is long for the shemlen, you know. Will you find the Commander’s reports in her room? Will you see Blackwall’s carvings on her vanity? Perhaps King Alistair, all lonesome on his throne, had caught her eye..._

Solas grits his teeth, pushes his doubts away, and opens the door. No more delays.

The trek to Ellana’s chambers feels longer than it ever has before, and the steps creak under his weight. It is as if all of Skyhold is trying to warn whoever is in Ellana’s room—if indeed there  _is_  someone in her room—of his approach.

He reaches her door, and pushes it open. The stained glass windows spill blue and yellow and green across the stone staircase in front of him, highlighting the stray dust motes in the air.

He takes his first step, and hears Dorian’s voice.

“Now, my dear, you must be very quiet. A bad man is here, but I will protect you, I promise. Very quiet, you understand? Good girl. I love you. I’ll see you soon. Give Uncle Dorian a kiss.” Solas hears Dorian kiss Siona’s cheek, and then sigh, as if he’s picking her up. “All right, fenlin, in you go. Remember, be  _very_  quiet.”

A door clicks shut. Solas swallows, and for a moment his arms lower. He forces himself to clasp his hands behind his back again and lifts his chin as he ascends the rest of the staircase, listening to the dead silence that follows Dorian’s words.

When he reaches her room at last, it is utterly empty.

He allows himself to take the time of looking over her room. The bed is as elaborate as ever, the white and green sheets neatly folded over. The potted plants resting on Ellana’s desk are half-wilted, and before he thinks to stop himself he’s walking over there, murmuring a spell under his breath, and the brown fades away as the leaves return to their full, verdant vibrancy.

He sighs, his eyes straying to the messy surface of her desk, his heart beating hard in his chest as he scans for signs of others. Cullen’s reports, or Blackwall’s carvings, or letters from noble suitors.

He sees nothing. Madness compels him to round the desk, opening drawers, searching for signs that someone shared this room with her, and finds nothing but papers and her book of herbs, where she pressed her favorite flowers.

She had not moved on. 

Part of him is grieved, that he had affected her so that she could not find another man to love her, to love her daughter, to replace him in her heart. Doing so would have been kinder for her, in the long run. Perhaps then she would not have wept in his arms and whispered  _I’m so glad you’re safe_  in his ear when they’d seen each other again.

The other part of him—much larger than the former, to his infinite disgust—is delighted: she had not moved on.

His hand goes to the necklace around his neck, tucked under his wolfpelt. He traces it absently, imagining Ellana alive and healthy and whole, with the necklace around her neck as she smiles at him.

And then he realizes what he is doing and clenches his hand into a fist, slamming it down onto the desk. “Foolish old man,” he half-snarls, his nose scrunching in his fury. He is pining over a dead woman, a woman he’d known had been dead from the very start, and he is wasting time indulging his sentimentality. Indulging this  _distraction._

_She is gone. Think of it no longer._

He swallows, blinking back an unexpected glaze of tears, and re-focuses on the task at hand. He scans the room, ignoring little details that betray Ellana’s former presence, and sees a new armoire that had not been there when he lived with her. It is large, almost as tall as him, and wide. Wide enough, perhaps, to hide a child. When he sends out a small, concentrated burst of magic around the area, he senses a powerful muffling spell to hide any sounds.

Clever. But, ultimately, not enough.

Solas quietly shuts the desk’s drawers and clasps his hands behind his back to regain some modicum of calm. He walks to the armoire, stopping just short of the doors, and sighs. His shoulders move with his breath. “Dorian,” he begins, quiet and soft. “I will not hurt the girl. I swear it. I am only doing as Ellana bid me.” 

He says, his voice so quiet it’s almost inaudible, “I owe her that much.” 

Nothing. Solas can only hear his breathing. He sighs. “I wish it had not come to this, Dorian.”

It brings him no joy to open the armoire—but when he looks, there is nothing but clothes inside. No quivering child, no bristling Tevinter mage. 

A trick. Dorian Pavus had  _tricked_  him. He cannot even appreciate the irony of it before he looks up and a fist catches his jaw.

The force of it is startling. Solas stumbles into an armoire door and finds himself touching his tender jaw, blinking rapidly and looking back to see Dorian Pavus standing in front of him, flexing his hand.

“I’ve waited a long time to do that,” the mage muses, and his eyes blaze. “Thank you ever so much for locking the eluvian after Ellana, Solas. Or should I call you Fen’Harel?  _My lord_ , perhaps?”

Solas looks away to hide his flinch. “Where is the girl, Dorian,” he says, flatly. He has no wish to fight the man Ellana considered her closest friend. He and Dorian, she had once said, occupied the same corner of her heart.

Dorian laughs, and it is a bitter sound. “The girl,” he repeats, with another derisive laugh. “The girl, he says! What, is it too much to think of her as your daughter? Does caring for a toddler interfere with your mad plan to destroy the world?”

Solas’s jaw clenches, and he folds his hands behind his back, straightening his shoulders. Dorian narrows his eyes, his hands buzzing with static electricity. “Do you even want to take her, Solas?” he asks, and he sounds truly curious. “Or are you just doing this because Ellana asked you to?”

“Ellana—”

“Yes, I thought so.” Dorian doesn’t look pleased. “Do you know what happened, after Corypheus was killed? Of course you don’t. She went up to her balcony and cried her eyes out. I joined her, of course, and she told me that she couldn’t hate you. I promised to hate you for her. And I assure you I have kept that promise. 

“You left her pregnant and alone, and you didn’t even have the decency to say, ‘Sorry, vhenan! I have things to do, like destroy the world to bring back Arlathan! Did I mention you’d probably die too? Oops!’ Now, who does  _that_  sound like, hm? Not, perhaps, an ancient Tevinter magister seeking to rebuild the glories of his homeland?”

“I am not Corypheus,” Solas starts.

Dorian laughs again, a little dismissive huff of air, and his smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “You actually believe that, don’t you? Remarkable. Creating a catastrophe that kills thousands of people? Resurrecting a civilization better off gone? Godhood, even?”

Solas struggles to regain his patience. “You test me, Dorian. Tell me where the girl is. I have no desire to fight you.”

“Forgive me my reticence, after what you did to my dearest friend. What will you do, Solas? I’m curious. Let’s say you find her. You take her through the eluvian, and—what? Will you read to her every night? Will you hold her when she has a nightmare?” He pauses to take a step back and breathe, and his next question cuts into Solas with the strength of a thousand knives. 

“When she asks where her mother is, what will you tell her? ‘Your mother’s dead! I killed her! Sweet dreams, darling girl!’”

Solas opens his mouth. Closes it. Clenches his jaw. Behind his back, his hands ball into white-knuckled fists. Dorian watches him, bristling with anger and expecting an answer. When Solas is at last able to speak without breaking down, he inhales sharply through his nose. “Your anger is understandable,” he says. 

Dorian’s mind blast sends him staggering to the bed. With a curse, Dorian follows it with a blast of electricity, and Solas barely has time to raise his barrier.

“Sleep!” he shouts, and Dorian counters it with a spell in Tevene. Solas stands up, Fade-stepping away from a fireball, and ends up right behind Dorian. “Sleep,” he says again, the word so forceful his will overpowers Dorian’s. The man manages another curse; then he, too, falls.

As he stares at Dorian, the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and he frowns, lifting his head. He cannot help but feel as though he has forgotten something. But what?

“My love,” says a soft, anguished voice behind him, in a cadence so familiar Solas staggers sideways and clings to a bedpost. “Please, turn back from this path. You don’t need to hunt alone any longer. Please. You have a pack now. Ma vhenan. Ma vhenan. I love you. I love you. I lo—”

The voice stops, gives way to a soft, almost inaudible sigh. Solas shakes, his lip bitten and bloody, his eyes screwed shut in pain. His hand comes up to cover his eyes and he drops to his knees, his free hand fisting in the duvet beside him.

“Cole,” he whispers, and his voice breaks on a sob.

“She followed the Vir Atish’an, the way of peace, and you loved that about her—careful, caring, kind, but now she is gone and the world is dark, despairing, lonely.” Cole pauses, resting a tentative hand on Solas’s shoulder as the elf tries to keep his tears at bay and fails. “She wanted to lead you back to hearth, to home, to heart, but she couldn’t stay—”

“Please,” he gasps, driving the heels of his hands into his eyes. “ _Please,_  Cole, I do not need this.”

“You’re not quiet anymore,” Cole whispers. “Before the pain was slow, not a sting but an ache, soft, steady, subtle. Now it’s deep and it burns, blistering, a deep gouge where your heart should be— _ma vhenan, ma vhenan, I cannot live without you!_ ”

“Enough!” Solas screams, tearing himself away from Cole’s gentle, compassionate touch. He slams his fist into the stone and grits his teeth.

He has already wept for Ellana’s death. He has known ever since that damning first kiss that she would die—and he has known since he saw her unconscious in Haven’s jails that the Mark would kill her, eventually. He knows these things, and yet the knowledge does not aid the wound that has sawed through the muscle in his heart.

“She was real,” Cole whispers, and Solas shudders, his tears dripping onto the cold stone below him. The spirit takes on Ellana’s voice again, smiles softly, almost like she would. The sight steals Solas’s breath and he swallows hard. “He’s lost himself in the woods, ma fenlin, and he thinks it’s dark because he’s closed his eyes. But very soon you and I will go into that forest, and lead him back to our hearth, and your papae will be with us again.”

 _He thinks it’s dark because he’s closed his eyes._  Solas inhales, shaking, and opens his eyes to look at the spirit of compassion watching him with wide, mournful eyes. “Enough,” he croaks. “I beg you. No more.”

“It didn’t help,” Cole replies, yet he shows none of his reluctance to stop as he had before Solas left. He walks forward and crouches in front of him. “Songs sweet like a lark, smiles reminders of soft mornings and hands sticky with paint—I’d like to know more about you, Solas.” When Solas says nothing, Cole stares at him. “She was my friend.”

“I know. And I am sorry.” Solas swallows thickly. “Please, Cole. Tell me where the child is, and I shall leave the rest in peace. If I do not find her, I will search every niche in Skyhold, and I cannot promise mercy to those who oppose me.”

“Siona, good and sweet, Ellana chose a fitting name. Does she have Ellana’s eyes? Her nose? What was her first word? I have missed so  _much_ —”

Solas bites his lip until it splits, and the pain gives him enough focus to block off his thoughts. Cole cuts off abruptly, staring at him with wide eyes.

“It does not matter,” Solas says, quietly, before Cole can protest. His voice is hoarse. “It does not matter. It changes nothing. Tell me where the girl is, Cole. My patience wanes.”

“He Who Hunts Alone,” Cole mutters, and shakes his head, confusion written across the lines of his face. “The title pains you, and yet you don’t let anyone close. You don’t let anyone help. Why?”

“It is my burden to bear,” Solas replies. “I must shoulder it alone. To do otherwise is selfish. The girl, Cole. Now.”

“The girl,” Cole repeats, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. Solas dries his still-wet eyes with his hand and stands up, clasping his hands behind his back. Cole rises with him. “Dorian told me to kill you, if he could not stop you. He said you wanted to hurt Siona. He is angry, grieving,  _I should’ve known she wouldn’t listen, not when it comes to him._ ”

“I will not hurt her,” he promises, hating the catch in his voice. Dorian’s hatred is unsurprising, expected even. And yet... He shakes his head, banishing the thought before it can fully take root.

Cole nods. “I know. That’s why I won’t kill you.” He tilts his head, listening, sensing. But Solas’s mental walls are strong now, and he will not be caught in another moment of weakness.

Solas sighs, and repeats his question a third time, his hands flexing behind his back. “Where is the child, Cole?”

Cole blinks at him. “What is her name, Solas?”

His body betrays him again. When he sighs, a fresh bout of tears sting the corner of his eyes, and he has to take a moment to blink them away before he can reply. “Her name is—Siona. Her name is Siona, Cole.”

Saying the girl’s name aloud makes it seem more real. He does not want it to be real. He does not want his newfound fatherhood to interfere with his plans—and he is confident that he can manage such a thing. It would be simple enough, to take the girl and instruct an agent to see to her every need. He could put her in a safehouse far away from his work, where she could not trouble his thoughts.

But such a thing would be breaking his promise to Ellana, and Cole seems to know it. _Don’t let her grow up without a father._ He can still hear her words; painful rasps of breath, her eyes shining Fade green.

Cole nods, satisfied. “You kissed her first that time, and her lips were even softer than in the Fade, even softer than your quietest hopes. Ar lath ma, vhenan, it changes everything but it can’t, it can’t, this world is an abomination and I cannot grow attached.”

“Thank you, Cole,” Solas says, his voice the picture of quiet defeat. Cole falls silent and regards him through clear gray eyes, listening to something only he can hear. After a moment, he is gone, and Solas is alone.

He turns to the bed and leans forward, resting his forehead against a bedpost as he clings to it for dear life. At last, he takes a deep, shuddering breath and squeezes his eyes shut. “I must endure,” he whispers to himself, and when he takes another breath his shoulders straighten as his chest rises.

But when he opens the balcony doors and snow blows in, it is as if he is two years in the past, watching the mountains and hyperaware of Ellana’s presence behind him. He strides out onto the balcony and stops, his gauntleted hands leaving their places behind his back to rest against the stone railing. “I must endure,” he whispers again, but his back bows and he rests his face in one hand, clenching his jaw to keep his lips from trembling.

A soft breath escapes him, and in the quiet he hears Cole’s words again. No, not Cole’s words—Ellana’s last thoughts. The knowledge does not make his heart or his mind rest any easier. If anything, it makes the ache in his chest worse. _Please, turn back from this path. You don’t need to hunt alone any longer. Please. You have a pack now. Ma vhenan. Ma vhenan. I love you. I love you. I lo—_

“Ellana,” he murmurs. Whispering her name to the silent mountains breaks him. Two fat tears leak out of his eyes, and for an instant he forgets all about his quest to find Siona. He forgets all else, save the memory of her fingers going slack against his skin, and how the Anchor had stolen from him the last comfort of seeing the true color of her eyes before she’d died.

He hunches over, his tears warm against the wind that brushes his cheeks, and draws in a ragged breath. He worries his bottom lip with his teeth again, reopening the wound, and tastes copper on his tongue. “She is dead,” he snarls to himself, in Elvish. The reminder, which should stop his pointless tears, only makes his sobs more potent. “She is dead, old fool. There is nothing you can do but continue on your path. Endure. _Endure._ ”

He shudders on his next exhale, but he does not have the chance to continue, because his thoughts are interrupted by a cough.

“Mister?” says the timid voice of a child.

Solas turns to see a toddler swaddled in an absurd amount of blankets. The only visible part of her body is her round face and wild snarls of auburn hair, yet even that part of her is half-concealed by a furry cap that extends over her ears and is tied under her chin. _She has Ellana’s hair_ , he thinks, and for an instant he cannot breathe. He cannot think.

He can only stare as his daughter blinks at him and says, “Mister, are you cwying?”

He takes a few, tentative steps toward the girl. When she does nothing, only stares at him with blatant curiosity in the soft roundness of her face, he swallows hard and kneels before her, bringing him to her eye level.

At last, he finds his voice. “You are Siona, I assume?”


	2. First Night

Solas stares at the girl in front of him, his gaze scanning the angular jaw rounded by baby fat without absorbing any real details. The child has a dimple in her chin, and a mouth full of small, pearly teeth. He focuses his gaze on her chin, rather than her eyes. He watches her chin dip down in a nod. “Who are you, Mister?” she asks him, and the breeze catches the end of her hat, catching the hair trapped underneath its fur.

“I—” he hesitates, unsure how to respond to the question. So many answers to give her, and yet none of them seem quite right. “My friends called me Solas.”

The girl nods again, accepting his reply. “Why were you cwying, Mister Solas?”

“I was not,” he tells her, and it feels ridiculous to lie to a toddler when the evidence of his grief exists in the tearstains on his cheeks and the itch in his eyes—but what is his alternative? To confess that her mother is dead, and dead at his hand, albeit inadvertently?

The child’s smooth brow furrows. Before she can question his lie, he whispers one word: “Sleep.”

The girl’s eyelids flutter shut at once. Her chin dips down and she slumps forward, but he catches her before she can land on the cold stone of the balcony. Solas’s head tilts as he adjusts her, and he catches the scent of her shampoo—she smells soft and powdery, traces of vanilla and the mountain air in her furry hat.

She is warm in his arms. Though it is awkward to get his arms around all of the blankets wrapped around her like they, too, are trying to prevent him from accomplishing his goal, at last he manages to hoist her up and stand. Her head lolls against his neck, and her hands curl into tiny little fists. One rests against his collarbone and the other is loose across his heart. He supports her with a hand on her back and under her legs, then leaves the balcony.

There is a servant present when he enters the Great Hall—human, not one of his. The man is whispering to Cassandra and shaking her, as if his words will bring her back from the stupor of the spell. He looks up when Solas opens the door, and blanches, scrambling backward.

Solas is not interested in further conflict. He has succeeded in his goal—there is no reason to linger in Skyhold’s walls. He levels the man with a cool stare and says, “Forget.”

While the man’s eyes glaze over, Solas slips through the hall to the garden, and from there to the room with the eluvian. The guard still sleeps—it is a simple matter to step through the eluvian to the crossroads, and from there it is even easier to lock Skyhold’s eluvian behind him.

The objective part of him knows that Dorian and Cassandra have far more important matters to attend to than the location of a two-year-old. The Inquisition’s fate without an Inquisitor would be chief among these concerns, certainly. And it is not unreasonable to assume Dorian had heard Solas’s confession of his plans—that, too, will take priority over the girl.

Still. He locks the next eluvian he goes through, just as a precaution. Emotions made fools of even the most rational men.

When he finally reaches the safehouse, nestled in a corner of the Hinterlands abandoned after the Mage-Templar War, his right hand is waiting for him, adjusting a bouquet of flowers on the dining table. Her back is to him, her silver hair catching the evening light as she hums a half-forgotten tune.

“What did you do?” he asks.

“I provided a woman’s touch. I can’t believe you’re so disorganized, boss—” Surana turns around, her grin easygoing and somehow sly, but then she sees the bundle in his arms and her eyes go wide. “What did _you_ do?”

He does not reply, and Surana blinks at him. Before she can say something sarcastic, Solas says, “The Inquisitor is dead. Nothing matters but that of the Inquisition’s future. The moment its fate is decided, I want a report from the agents in the Council. Notes on the Magister Pavus’s and the Seeker’s reactions or intentions are also required.”

“You got it, boss,” Surana replies, and Solas brushes past her to the first of two bedrooms in this particular safe house. He feels the weight of her gaze on his shoulder—specifically, on the head of fur resting on his shoulder—but she does not call after him. The woman’s curiosity is not so strong that she will put off orders to sate it.

He enters the bedroom, only to blink at what awaits him.

Surana _has_ been busy: his reports, once disorganized and strewn across his desk as he had realized Ellana had been investigating the Qunari faster than he’d assumed, were now in organized piles, leaving room to write on the surface of his desk. His bed was made, and a fresh bouquet of flowers rests on an end table beside it, brightening the room considerably. Though it is autumn, Surana has a knack for finding life where one least suspects, and he is certain this safehouse will smell like wildflowers until the snows set in.

He rests the child on his bed, disentangling her from most of the blankets and folding them into neat squares. When she sleeps on her back, nothing remaining but her nightgown, her cap, and a wool blue blanket around her torso, Solas steps away from her and clasps his hands behind his back.

At the very least, the spell should keep for a few hours. Plenty of time for him to put the girl out of his mind and re-focus on the more important tasks at hand.

Surana is writing orders when he returns. As she blows air across her parchment she slides another sheet to him, and he picks up the report to scan it. One of his agents has made successful contact with the Tabris woman. She is thus far unwilling to support Solas (apparently she had used the words ‘this alienage has seen too much blood to suffer fools like you’), but the agent is confident that she will come around, given time.

Solas is not as confident as his agent, but if Denerim’s bann can be convinced to join him, then it is likely other elves will follow her lead—and from there, he will have a sizeable portion of Ferelden city elves at his side. He sets the report down and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Surana.”

“Boss.”

“Do you remember the assignment we discussed?”

She nods, setting her quill down and cracking her knuckles. “I’m ready—”

“You are no longer responsible for it,” Solas tells her, scanning another report without looking up. “I will fulfill that mission personally.”

She is silent. When he looks up, Surana is staring at him, her eyebrows raised high. “Are you joking?” she asks, incredulous. “You want to convince the Hero—a Dalish elf who is more likely to stab you than listen to you—to join you, _by yourself_.”

“Her testimony will get me every Dalish clan in southern Thedas. They are not likely to forget the woman who secured them a homeland, albeit a temporary one. And…” he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “There are certain… complications that have arisen. I need you here to tend to them while I am away.”

Surana’s eyebrows rise higher. “I’ve never interacted with children in my _life_.”

“There were children in your Circle, were there not? Surely this will not be so different.”

“Of course,” Surana replies, with a deadpan that would make Dorian proud. “Two year olds and twelve year olds—just about the same thing, right?”

“I do not have the first idea of caring for a two-year-old,” Solas begins.

“Then why is there a toddler in your bedroom, boss?”

“Because—” he snaps his mouth shut and glances down, seeing that he has crumpled a report by fisting it in his hand. He releases the paper with a sharp exhale and smoothes it out, crossing his arms behind his back and regaining his composure. “The girl was the Inquisitor’s.”

“Oh,” says Surana. “Shit.”

“The Inquisitor asked me personally to care for the girl. I… could not refuse her last request.” Though now, he is beginning to regret his decision. It is too late to return her to Skyhold, at least not without bloodshed.

“So how does me playing babysitter your kid count as _you_ taking care of this kid?” Solas turns around to stare at her, but Surana is undeterred. “I seem to recall you telling me that ‘formality is unnecessary’. Is that still true?”

Solas turns back to the window. The sun has already set, painting the sky a deep midnight with a smattering of starlight. A clear night. Ellana had always loved— _none of that._ “Yes, it is. I… appreciate your bluntness, Surana, though it may not seem as such. I simply… I do not know how to be a father. To accept this task—I should not have done it. It was foolish and short-sighted. It was a mistake.”

“Right,” Surana says, drawing out the word. “So, first, you need to stop looking at it like a task. Raising this kid won’t be like marking off a box on your to-do list.”

“Thank you, Surana. I did not realize parenting was permanent,” Solas retorts. Her snort catches him off-guard.

“Your snark is the best,” she sighs, and when he looks at her she is lounging in her chair, her back arched and her hands in the air, stretching like a cat. She settles back, closing her eyes. “Ahem. Anyways. What’s the kid’s name?”

Solas is silent. He picks up a third report, but even as he scans it he doesn’t read a word. “Her name is Siona, but I am under the impression she is also called fenlin.”

“Nice. The names mean anything?”

“Siona means good and sweet. Fenlin… means wolfling.” He had thought saying it aloud would make him smile at Ellana’s cleverness, but it only twists his stomach into trepidation. Nicknaming their daughter _wolfling_ hints at a greater knowledge on Ellana’s part. How long had she known his identity? Would he have stayed if—

No. No, there is no use in dwelling on the hypothetical, especially when the musings concern a dead woman. “The point is that she will realize that I have taken her from all comfort she knows, and she will hate me.”

It is one thing to be the focus of Ellana’s hatred. But the thought of his daughter despising him rankles more than he’d thought. The girl is only two, after all, perhaps three. Ensuring she has a high opinion of him is a rather low priority.

“The wrath of a two-year-old is a great and terrible thing,” Surana says, solemnly.

“Indeed.” Solas tries to read the report in his hand, and this time absorbs some details. The Red Jennies have been active… again. Two eluvians have been moved—one tossed in the middle of Lake Celestine, it seems, and the other tied to the edge of a cliff—and another three are shattered. He takes Surana’s quill and jots down a note to rebuild the eluvians and recover the one on the cliff. “In any case, I will be having limited interaction with the girl. If you are not amenable to being her caretaker, I will find someone else, but as you are already here, it would be considerably easier.”

“If she dies, I apologize in advance.”

Surana’s tone is joking, but it stirs something foreign in his chest. Solas pauses his writing and looks up to give her a long, hard stare. “No. She will not die. You will protect the girl with your life, if need be.”

Surana’s eyebrows return to their place high on her brow. “Got it, boss. When my grandkids ask me how I contributed to the rebirth of Elvhenan, I can tell them, ‘Well, kids, I babysat the Dread Wolf’s pup.’ Awesome.”

Solas sighs, hanging his head. Surana is competent and good company, but she does not hesitate in questioning him or in poking fun at him. Most days it is refreshing. Others… “ _Must_ you call her my pup?”

“What about cub? Or spawn? Maybe offspring?”

“ _Daughter_ will suffice.”

Surana smiles and stands up. “It’s late. I’m going to bed. Don’t work too hard, boss, and make sure you eat something. I harvested the apples this morning—they’re delicious. You remember how to make oatmeal?”

“I do, thank you. Goodnight, Surana.”

“Night, boss.”

He takes her vacated seat and works by light of a fresh candle, jotting down orders and reminders, as well as the names of agents he must check on personally. He stays awake until the candle is half its size, and his eyelids weigh on him.

He waits until he finishes his sentence, then pushes the parchment out of his way. He rests his head on the heel of his hand and his eyes slip shut, in what is meant to be a momentary rest.

He is not even aware, at first, when he slips into the Fade. He still sits at the table, and soft footsteps make him turn.

Ellana stands in the doorway. Her red-gold hair is unbound for bed, stray tendrils framing her face. Shadows on her nightgown emphasize the swell of her belly. She smiles at him, and her grin is the most beautiful thing his tired eyes have seen in a long while.

“Hello, ma vhenan,” she says.

Solas does not move. He hardly dares to breathe. “What do you want?” he asks, lowly. He does not need to sense the Fade to know that this must be a demon come to tempt him. There is no alternative. His heart, his true heart and not a figment of his feverish, most futile wishes, is dead. She will never come back.

Anything the Fade has to offer is a pale imitation.

Still, the spirit is undeterred. She smiles at him and walks forward, placing her Anchored palm over his own. “The baby kicked,” she confesses, her cheeks rosy pink in the firelight. “Don’t you want to feel her?”

Her fingers curl over his, warm and solid, and her touch steals his breath. She raises his palm to rest against her pregnant belly and looks down at him with a grin, clearly expecting a reaction.

He opens his mouth. To rebuke the spirit, perhaps, or to say the necessary words to leave this dream—he cannot say. At the same time he starts to speak, he feels a movement under his palm, and once again he is at a loss.

Ellana laughs at his expression, and her laugh is _exactly_ as he remembers—bright and joyful, completed by the crinkles in the corner of her eyes. She dips down and kisses his head, her Anchored hand glowing more brightly against his palm. “Our child,” she says, laughing again. “We can raise her together, Solas. I’ve never wanted anything more than to see you hold our daughter.” At his silence, she falters. “Don’t you want that, ma vhenan?”

Solas swallows, and ice forms in his veins as he reminds himself again that this is a dream. He removes his hands, but they itch to press against her skin again, to feel the life growing beneath. He resists the urge by balling his hands and pressing them into his thighs.

“I will not repeat myself, demon,” he says, and avoids her gaze so he will not see the pain in her eyes. “This is your last chance to leave. You test my patience.”

The Anchor explodes in her palm, and she collapses to her knees with a scream of pain. Solas kneels beside her at once, acting from instinct rather than thought, and when his hands clasp her shoulders she looks at him, her cheeks shining from her tearstains.

“You did this to me!” she cries. He releases her, his hands stinging as though burned, and when he inhales he can taste the bitter sweetness that accompanies Despair. “You left me alone and scared and you _killed me!_ ” She pauses to take a shaky breath, and her voice breaks on her next words. “And now you’re going to kill my baby.”

He makes the mistake of looking into her eyes. They are so vibrant, so real, and the taste of Despair intermingles with the blood in his mouth. “Ma vhenan,” he says, his voice cracking. “I did not—I never—”

“What else could you do? You stole her from her home. She doesn’t know you! She could never know you! You’ve taken her from Skyhold, from her _family_ , and you expect her to _love_ you? How could anyone love the Dread Wolf?”

The Anchor sputters, and her next accusations are cut off by agonized sobs. Solas reaches for her, but there is an impossible distance between them, and every time he tries to grab her hand—if he could only _touch_ her, he could take the Anchor and _save_ her—but she is too far from him, no matter what he does.

She seizes, blood wetting her lips. “Solas, help me,” she begs. The naked fear cuts into him and he gathers a burst of magic, to send over a distance, but before he releases his spell her eyes glaze over and she slumps to the ground.

“Vhenan!” he screams, eyes wide and heart pounding, but before he can go to her dead body he is sucked into another section of the Fade. He glimpses a meadow and squeezes his eyes shut, sucking in harsh, ragged breaths to reign in his riotous emotions. He must regain his control, he _must_ , else he will attract demons more powerful than the first—

Footsteps whisper across the grass. “My love,” she whispers. “You are safe here.”

Solas looks up, bristling, ready to transform into the Wolf. He itches to rip this spirit apart, for even daring to intrude upon him, but he stops short when he smells her scent on the breeze.

It is just as he remembers: vanilla, crisp mountain air, and elfroot. This spirit must be smarter than Despair, because the Despair demon did not include such a detail in its poor copy.

 _A copy which you believed,_ he reminds himself, bitterly. He stares at the spirit and cannot stop his scowl. “Away with you. I have no patience for your games.”

The spirit wearing Ellana’s face gives him a look so sad it twists in his chest as deeply as a dagger. Instead of fleeing his wrath, she—no, no, _it_ —sits in front of him. “My heart,” it whispers, and when it lifts its fingertips to brush his cheek he jerks away.

“Stop.”

“Oh, _Solas_ ,” Ellana says, and rises to her knees. Before he can react, she cups his face and presses a kiss to his forehead. He stiffens, preparing to pull away. “Our fenlin cries,” she tells him, and feathers her lips across his brow. “My love, _wake up_.”

* * *

He jolts awake and sees the barest traces of a sky lightening with the dawn. A blanket is draped across his shoulders and a cold cup of oatmeal rests beside his reports—Surana’s work, no doubt. The woman has taken to caring for him as though he is the young one.

But he is more concerned with the girl than finding and thanking Surana. _Our fenlin cries,_ the spirit had said. He will have to investigate the shade wearing his heart’s face at a later time. For now, he has more pressing matters.

His bedroom is dark and silent when he opens the door. Solas opens the curtains with a gesture, and a beam of blue light falls across the empty bed. His eyes widen and he crosses to the bed, only to find that the rumpled sheets are cool. “Da’len,” he says, lifting his head and scanning the small room, searching for niches a two-year-old may utilize as a hiding spot. “Da’len, come out at once.”

A small sniffle answers him. He turns around to see a huddle of blankets quivering in the corner concealed by the door. One could be inclined to believe the shape to just be a pile of blankets put out of sight—if the blankets did not rise every heartbeat, and if the blankets had concealed the furry cap that pokes out of the end, facing away from him.

Solas shuts the door, freeing up space to kneel behind her. The heap of blankets begins to tremble, and every rise of breath is accompanied by a wet sniffle. He reaches out, almost tentative, but stops just short of touching the child.

How is he to console her? He had stolen her from the only home she’d ever known, out of some foolish, misguided sense of duty, and it is too late to take her back. Perhaps it would be better to let her grieve in peace.

His hand pulls back and drops to his side. He stands up wordlessly and walks out, shutting the door quietly behind him. He returns to the table and sits down, pressing his hand across his mouth and staring at the reports in front of him, absorbing nothing.

Surana emerges from her bedroom not five minutes later, bright-eyed and an empty basket in her hand. “Morning, boss,” she greets, coming around the table, and her smile falters when she sees his expression. “What happened? Bad dream?”

Solas shakes his head and lowers his hand. “The girl is crying.”

Surana sets down the basket. “Don’t tell me you left her alone.”

“What else am I to do? She is grieving. Nothing I say could console her.”

Surana blinks at him. “Okay. I need you to be honest with me here. Were there kids in ancient Elvhenan?”

“Of course,” he snaps. Surana stares at him, and his annoyance shifts to semi-awkwardness as he thinks on the question. “Though they were almost exclusive to the lower classes. Of course, the evanuris and their followers had no need for reproduction. They viewed children as… unnecessary. Hindrances to the enjoyment of daily life.”

Surana stares at him. He stares at her. The silence drags on, finally broken by her sigh. She closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Oh, gods.”

Her tone rankles, and he narrows his eyes at her.

“For someone who claims to have limited to nonexistent interaction with children, you have multiple opinions on this matter.”

“You’d have motherly instincts, too, if you’d lived with Wynne for twenty years,” Surana shoots back. “Boss, your kid is two years old. She needs comfort, not solitude.”

“How could I comfort her, precisely?” he asks, fighting a scowl as he stands up. “If she wishes to return to Skyhold? I cannot do that. If she wishes to see her family? I cannot bring them to her. If she asks about her mother—” he stops short and looks away, his jaw clenched. When he looks back at Surana, she is staring steadfastly at his bowl of oatmeal.

“Well,” she says, at last.

She picks up the bowl and blows a strand of hair out of her eyes. “I was torn from my clan when I was ten. Greagoir, the Knight Commander, told me straight up I would never see them again. And I turned out okay, but only because I had Wynne. Boss, if she doesn’t have anyone, it’s only going to get worse.”

He opens his mouth, to retort that she _did_ have someone, she had had Dorian and Ellana, and he had stolen her from them—but before he can speak, Surana hands him the oatmeal, her eyes weary in a way he had never seen before. “Give this to her,” she says, and finds a spoon from one of the kitchen drawers. “She’s probably hungry.”

Solas almost asks Surana to do it. He cannot look at his daughter’s tears with the knowledge that he is the one who caused them. He is a coward for it, he knows. But he cannot get the words past his lips, and with a silent nod he turns and returns to the bedroom.

The girl has only curled up into herself even further, a tighter wad of quivering blankets and furry hat. Solas closes the door behind him and sits in front of her, the oatmeal in his hands. “Da’len,” he says, gently. A high-pitched noise, the thin knife’s-blade noise between a whine and a sob, answers him, wrenching at his heart. “Please do not cry. I brought you breakfast. Are you hungry, da’len?”

“I want go _home_!” the girl wails in response. Her wet sniffle follows her words, then, quieter but no less anguished, “I want Mamae.”

Solas’s hands shake. He sets the oatmeal on the floorboards and reaches for the heaving blankets, but snatches his hand back at the last second. He raises his trembling hand to his mouth, pressing his fingers firmly over his lips and chin.

What could he say? _What could he say?_

“I want her back as well,” he confesses. It seems the right thing to say, because the girl finally turns over. Her face is red, a mess of snot and tears and grimaces. Her hair is a tangle under her cap, and her eyes are bloodshot.

“Unca Dowy said the bad man hurt her,” she says, and more tears run down her cheeks. What leaves her mouth next is a stream of babbling, mostly incoherent words and phrases broken by heaving sobs. Solas does not even try to understand what she says, only sits and listens. At last, she wears herself out, and wipes at her wet cheeks with her wrist.

“Ir abelas, da’len,” he says, at last, the sincerity of his sentiment too heavy for simple Common. “You need not fear the bad man any longer. He will not hurt you here. I swear it.”

The girl says nothing, but her reddened eyes return to the bowl of warm oatmeal. At last, she frees her hands from her swathe of blankets and reaches for it, dragging the cup toward her. She fumbles with the spoon, but it is too big, too clumsy, for her tiny fingers. Solas doesn’t react fast enough to stop her from mashing her hand in the bowl and bringing the oatmeal to her mouth.

“Da’len!” he says, watching her smear oatmeal across her chin. She giggles at his expression, her red-rimmed eyes bright with amusement, and for an instant Solas can detect some of Ellana’s mischievousness in his daughter’s face.

The girl gives him a cheeky grin, and, oh.

She has Ellana’s dimples.

It should not hurt as much as it does.

The moment passes when a clump of mush slides down her chin onto her nightgown, and with a sigh Solas picks up the spoon and scrapes away the excess from her chin and lips. “Why did you do that?” he asks, pulling the bowl away from her reach and taking her dainty wrist in hand.

“I don’t like spoons,” the child mumbles, petulantly.

“Clearly,” he replies, tracing a water glyph over her palm. He wipes the stickiness clean from her skin, and dries the water on his shirt. When her hands are clean again, he lifts the bowl into his lap. “Now, let’s see if you can eat without making a mess, hm?”

She grins again. Solas returns her smile and holds up the spoon, not quite sure what he’s meant to be doing. She opens her mouth, eyes on the food, and he puts the spoon into her mouth, waiting until she closes her lips and swallows. When he pulls it out, the dip of the spoon is free of oatmeal.

It is the most awkward thing he’s ever done. Yet, somehow, it feels as though feeding her has the potential to blossom into something as natural as breathing.

“Yum,” his daughter says, and he gives her a weak smile in return, bringing a fresh spoonful of oatmeal to her lips.

By the time she is full, as she indicates by shaking her head and saying “No!” when he lifts the spoon, her face is considerably less red. Solas puts the spoon in the half-eaten oatmeal and sets it aside, and when he lifts his gaze back to her he sees her eyes.

And this time, he _sees_ them.

The girl has Ellana’s eyes.

The sight tugs something loose in Solas’s chest, the sensation more akin to a dull ache than anything else, and suddenly he cannot swallow. He stares at his heart’s eyes in the girl’s face, and with a sharp breath he stands up, all but fleeing the room with bowl in hand.

Surana is not in the kitchen. Solas sets the bowl down on the countertop and rests his hands on the countertop, closing his eyes until the rush of blood in his ears fades. He swallows hard and shakes his head.

Ridiculous. It is ridiculous, but he is a coward, and it would not be the first time he broke a promise to Ellana. He had thought he could do it. But then he had noticed—not only seen, but _realized_ —he had noticed that the girl had Ellana’s eyes.

He cannot do it. He _cannot_. He can endure many things, but not this.

He hears footsteps and draws in a shaky breath. “Surana. You must return the girl to Skyhold. I—things have changed. Return as soon as you are able, and be sure to check on the drop points—”

“Mister Solas?” the girl asks, and he closes his eyes for a brief moment to regain his composure. He turns to see the child standing there, her hands pressed together in front of her. She blinks, and in a heartbeat her eyes brim with tears. “Are you angry at me?”

Solas can only stare at her, and then his feet are moving on their own accord. He kneels in front of the girl. His hands itch to comfort her, but he does not move. “No, da’len, of course not,” he says. “It is… you look very much like your mother.”

Truly, their only shared features are hair, dimples, and eyes; she resembles him moreso than Ellana.

And yet.

The girl sniffs, once, and rubs at her cheek with her wrist. “You know Mamae?” she asks.

“Yes, I did,” he confesses. “We were… very close.”

She nods, accepting his answer. The front door opens, and the girl turns, her confusion blatant on her face. Solas waits until a humming Surana arrives, her basket full of reports and drops. She sets the basket down and turns, jumping when she sees them. “Gods, you scared me!” she exclaims, placing a palm over her heart and leveling Solas with a glare.

Solas smirks, which only makes Surana’s glare more potent. “Da’len, this is Surana. Go to her when you need something. She will help you adjust to your new life here.”

While the child tries to pronounce _Surana_ , his right hand arches an eyebrow. “So she _is_ staying?” she asks, her words concealing the more pressing question.

Solas glances at the girl. “Soora!” the child proclaims at last, with a triumphant grin. “Hello, Soora. It is very nice to meet you.”

He can hear Josephine in her polite greeting, and it makes him smile, just slightly. He does not respond to Surana, but his silence is all the answer she needs.

“Well,” Surana says. “I’ll get started on breakfast.”


	3. Mourning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shows up two months late with starbucks like........... happy holidays

Surana sets her basket on the table and gets to work. Solas thanks her, quietly, and she only nods, humming her tune under her breath. He straightens up, patting Siona on the head, and goes to the basket.

Most of the basket is filled with reports. He picks the first one up, a parchment from an agent in Orlais. Rumors of the Dread Wolf fighting to restore the elves spread through the elven servant masses, and more flock to his banner every week.

Good. Good. He sets that aside and turns to the next one, but a tug on his leathers makes him look down. The child stares up at him, her brow furrowed in concentration. “Mister Solas?”

“Yes, da’len?”

She takes a step back and spreads her arms, fisting her hands once then opening her palms again, in a quick _give me_ gesture. “Up, pwease?” she asks, and the hope that shines in her eyes—Solas swallows. He looks over his shoulder to Surana, as if she will have some idea of what to do, but she is humming, oblivious to the situation.

Or, perhaps, she knows exactly what is going on, and grinning to herself while she pretends to be unaware. It seems like something Surana would do.

Solas turns back to the girl, and she makes that same gesture. “Pwease?” she asks again, tilting her head. Ellana’s eyes, round and large, plead with him in a child’s face. Solas sighs again and crouches, wrapping his arms around her and lifting her to his shoulder.

She is a warm weight in his arms, and she somehow fits against him perfectly. She does not hesitate to wrap one arm around his neck and stick her thumb into her mouth while she gazes upon the basket.

As he moves his reports from the basket to the table, he sees something he has never received before. “Surana, what is—” he begins, pushing papers away for a better view of the wolf plush nestled into the basket.

The child gasps. “ _Tusky!_ ”

She squirms in his arms, almost falling over as she reaches for the wolf plush. Solas picks it up for her, blinking as she crushes it to her cheek. The wolf appears as if it was hand-sewn: it has black fur and red scraps of fabric for eyes, and black thread where different pieces of cloth were sewn together. White thread is tenderly stitched in its snout, forming a small, gentle smile.

Somehow, he _knows_ the plush is Ellana’s creation. If she had known her daughter was the child of the Dread Wolf, her sense of humor demanded that she take advantage of it in every way possible.

Except… she shouldn’t have known. She shouldn’t have known the truth, but all evidence points to the contrary.

And how a wolf gets the name ‘Tusky’ is beyond him.

He watches the girl hug a miniature plush of the Dread Wolf, and somehow, his troubled thoughts about Ellana fade away. The child tucks Tusky into the crook of her arm and beams at him, and something closes around his heart as he sees Ellana’s dimples in his daughter’s face.

“Elan Ve’mal put it in the drop,” Surana explains, stirring a pot twice before resting it over the woodstove. “Said it might help the girl out. I’ve some news, but it’s best saved for after breakfast.”

Solas’s smile is weak, and his free hand shakes. He sets the girl on the table with firm instructions not to move, then takes the basket to his desk in the bedroom. He takes a moment, staring at the leaflets of parchment without truly reading anything, and after several long seconds of silence he sighs.

_Endure._

When he returns, the girl is cuddling her plush and babbling to Surana. Surana replies as best as she is able, and as she cooks, the smell of stew and baking bread fills the kitchen. At last, she fills two bowls with stew and pulls a loaf of crisp golden bread from the oven.

“We should go to the market, Boss,” says Surana, sitting at the table. The girl drops her plush and lifts her arms toward Solas, who obliges her at once, pulling her into her lap. She tears chunks from the bread and dips the small fists of bread into his stew. Surana eyes the oatmeal stain on the girl’s nightgown. “She’ll need some new clothes.”

Solas nods. “This afternoon, then. I will need time to finish reading the reports.”

Surana hands him a towel, and he uses it to wipe off residue of the breakfast soup from Siona’s lips. The girl laughs and shoves another clump of bread into her mouth, laughing when Solas sighs in mock exasperation.

She has a beautiful laugh, his daughter, a high-pitched squealing sort of giggle that lights up her eyes. Eventually she is full and tries to slide off of his lap—Solas catches her under the arms and lowers her to the floor, then hands her Tusky without prompting.

“Thank you, Mister Solas,” she says, somberly, then runs off to play with her plush.

Solas watches her go and swallows hard. He looks once more at his cooling breakfast, but does not have much of an appetite and can only eat half of it. He thanks Surana once more, but she stops him with a casual suggestion of, “Boss, I’m heading down to the market once we clean up. The kid should probably get some new clothes. Want to come with me?”

“Ah. Yes. Yes, I will join you.”

Surana smiles and rises to her feet, bringing her bowl to the counter. “I’ll get the water for this and then we can head out.”

Solas changes out of his sleep clothes, pulling on two threadbare tunics and plain leggings. Warm enough for the autumn chill, yet common enough for anyone’s eyes to overlook. A cloak conceals his head, eliminating his most outstanding feature. No one will spare a second glance for a poor elf.

Surana carries the girl when he emerges from his room. She wears her hat, and her arms are wrapped around the woman’s neck. When she sees him, her cheeks dimple, and she reaches both hands toward him. “Mister Solas!”

Surana fights a smile as she transfers the child between them. Solas gives her a warning look, but his expression falters when his daughter wraps an arm around his neck and tucks her face against the juncture between throat and shoulder. Finely pointed ears peek beneath her red-gold hair. Solas brushes a strand behind it and swallows.

His daughter has his ears, down to the length and earlobe, though smaller, more delicate.

“Can I have Tusky, please, Miss Soora?” the girl asks, breaking him from his reverie.

“Since you asked so nicely,” Surana says, her smile widening. She clasps a cloak at her throat and disappears into the kitchen, returning with the wolf plush. The child wraps her hand around the wolf’s snout and pulls it close, turning into his shoulder.

“Thank you,” she mumbles against Solas’s shoulder.

Solas is quiet as he regards her. Ellana had raised her well.

A lump wells in his throat, and he looks to Surana. She is watching in silence, expression unreadable. “Is this addition necessary?” he asks.

“You can’t pair just _anything_ with red hair, Boss,” says Surana, blinking at him.

Of course. “An excellent point,” he concedes. “Shall we go?”

The walk to the market is filled with Surana and the girl’s chatter; Surana asks the girl about what she liked best at Skyhold. The child had launched into high praise of everything: the gardens, the ‘horsies,’ the food.

“I miss Uncle Dowy,” she says, a frown crumpling her smooth, round face. Solas clenches his jaw. “And Uncle Vawic. He told me stories.”

“What kind of stories?” Surana asks, and the girl’s eyes light up, lips curling to reveal small, pearly teeth.

“Dwagons! And a lady hawk, and sunshine, and daisies. They fight the dwagons and _then_ they have to save their friend Bwoody from an evil man…”

Her story grows more and more improbable, but it saves Solas from having to talk. He stares straight ahead, his jaw clenched so hard he wonders if it will one day break under the stress.

When the bright tents of the market come into sight, Solas breathes a sigh of relief. Surana buys apricots and carrots, then leads him to the fabric tent.

The vendor gasps at the sight of the child in Solas’s arms. “What a beautiful little girl!” she exclaims. She is a round, warm woman, with kind eyes and quick, nimble fingers. His daughter hides her smile in Tusky’s fur.

“Thank you, miss,” she whispers.

The seamstress chuckles. “And so polite, too,” she says. “Well, Neria, good to see you again. I assume you’ll be wanting some swatches for your daughter?”

Solas swallows thickly, readjusting his grip on the child.

“She’s not my daughter,” Surana says, at the same time his daughter lifts her head and declares, “She’s _not_ my mamae!”

“Oh. Ah—pardon me, then. You have the prettiest hair, Miss…”

“Siona,” his daughter says.

“Miss Siona,” the seamstress amends, smiling. “Now, what is your favorite color, little miss? Is there anything you like right away?”

The girl sits up, eyes roving over the shop. Wordlessly, she points to a bolt of lilac fabric, then robin’s egg blue. “I like those ones,” she offers, uncertainty trembling in the curve of her upper lip.

The seamstress beams, and Solas wonders if it isn’t because the fabrics the girl has chosen are among the most expensive. “Those are wonderful choices, Miss Siona! I’ll cut some yards for you right away, Neria. Five or ten?”

“Five. I’ll come back if I need more. Do you have any leather or furs? It’s getting cold, and she doesn’t have a coat or gloves.”

“Of course! I recently got the shipment of the softest fur. Come with me, dear!”

The seamstress leads Surana to the back of the tent, leaving Solas and the girl alone. “She’s a nice lady,” the child observes, blinking at him. Solas smiles, the small dip of his head his only acknowledgement.

He turns and walks to the edge of the tent, lifting his face to the sunlight. He can feel his daughter’s heart beating through his tunics, and though she is quiet beside him, she anchors him to the present.

He wants to talk to her, as casually as Surana had; he wants to be on the receiving end of her shy smiles, or her sweet giggle-laughs.

But he does not know how. He destroys everything he touches, and his daughter will be no different.

She gasps beside him, drawing him back. “Mamae!” she shouts, wide-eyed and grinning. Solas’s heart leaps in his throat. It cannot be. She must be mistaken, but madness still has him look up and scan the crowd.

And he sees what she does: a head full of golden-red hair, similar to Ellana’s shade but just a touch too blonde.

“Mamae!” she cries again, raising her voice. She strains away from Solas, reaching a hand toward the faceless woman. “ _Mamae!_ ”

A human woman, the owner of the familiar hair color, turns around. His daughter shrinks back, a small fist nestling against his chest. Her lips quiver and her ears are red. Her fingers spasm around Tusky’s paw.

“Apologies,” Solas tells the woman, heart hammering when he hears a small sniffle beside him. When he looks at his daughter, she is rubbing her eyes with tiny fists, Tusky limp at her temple’s side. When she lowers her hands, her face is red.

She glares at him, brow furrowing in her concentration. “Where is she?” she demands, with all the sincere outrage only a child can muster. Tears glaze over her eyes, and a tremor runs through Solas’s chest at the sight.

She is about to cry. Out of frustration, or disappointment, or rage, Solas cannot tell; he only knows that her tears will devastate him, and he will not be able to soothe her.

He lifts his gaze, scanning the market crowds. Where has Surana gone? She can handle this. She will know what to say to calm the girl down. Solas cannot—he will fumble his words, as artless as a drunk, and only worsen her distress.

He does not spot a flash of silver hair, nor a black cloak. Surana has disappeared.

He crosses the dirt road, so they have some semblance of privacy but are within sight of the seamstress’s tent. He sits down, tucking her against his chest, shielding her from prying eyes.

“Da’len, look at me,” he says. She does, but her face crumples, and she holds Tusky close. Solas smoothes hair out of her face and shushes her gently. “Do not cry, da’len. Please.”

“I want Mamae,” she replies. She blinks, fat tears dribbling down her cheek. She holds Tusky close as her face crumples. “ _I want Mamae!_ ”

Her last cry is more of a scream, and Solas can feel others’ eyes on him. Wordlessly, he casts a small sound barrier, cutting them off from the rest of the world. It shivers across their skin and clings tight. When it is fully cast, Solas turns back to his daughter.

“Your mamae is not here, da’len,” he says. It is the wrong thing to say. Her wail pierces his heart, scraping against the inside of his chest as potent as a knife’s blade. He fists his hands as he stares at his sobbing daughter.

What can he say? _What can he say?_

“But I am,” he tries, reaching for her, and she twists away, crying harder. Solas pulls back and rests his hands in his lap, swallowing thickly. “What did your mamae do when you cried, da’len? How did she make you smile?”

She sniffles, cradling Tusky under her chin, and looks at him with wide, watering eyes. Ellana’s eyes. The lump in Solas’s throat grows. “She sang to me,” she mumbles, at last, into Tusky’s fur.

Solas swallows, and his heart thuds against the cage of his ribs. He had never been a particularly good singer, by all accounts. “What song?” he asks, to which he receives a shrug.

A knot tightens in his stomach, yet it is no time at all before he is recalling an old, old tune.

He clears his throat and sings the first line, making her look up.

Her laughter peals through the air and Solas stops. “Mister Solas!” she says, and her giggles almost soothe the ache he feels at the sight of her tears. “Mister Solas, that’s something _Mamae_ does.” A delicate pause, as she carefully considers her next words. “And she was a pretty singer.”

Solas laughs. “Abelas, da’len,” he says, and impulse has him reach out to wipe her tears away. She blinks at that, her grip on Tusky loosening before she cradles it to her chest once more. Solas snatches his hand away and returns it to his lap, clearing his throat. “I am not a good singer.”

His daughter stares at him, brow furrowing. She drops Tusky into her lap and reaches forward, the pads of her fingers brushing against the points of his ears. Solas shivers, but does not move. He does not even dare to breathe.

She pulls back, confusion still gleaming in her eyes. “You know Mamae, right, Mister Solas?” she asks. He nods, wordless, and she tilts her head, tears forgotten. “So... do you know my Papae?”

The breath catches hard in his lungs. Her question had been unexpected.

He should tell her, and put her questions to rest. She deserves to know, and besides, he had promised Ellana. _Don’t let her grow up without a father._

But the words stick in the space between teeth and tongue, and all he can do is nod, wordlessly. She huffs, then turns her bright eyes upon him. “What is he like, Mister Solas?” She falters. “Do you think he loves me?”

Oh.

Oh, _no,_ he cannot do this.

“Another conversation for another time, da’len,” he says, quietly, and thanks whatever force guides the world that she is too young to hear the grief in his voice. She huffs in disappointment, but allows him to hold her close. Solas closes his eyes when he feels her hair tickle his throat.

_Yes. Yes, da’vhenan, yes. How could you ever doubt it?_

Ah, but of course she would doubt. He had left her mother pregnant and alone (Dorian’s accusations, steeped in anger and undeniable truth, are still sharp stones inside him), and when he had learned of _her_ , he had not returned to Ellana’s side. His duty weighs too heavily on his shoulders; it cannot be discarded for the heart’s whims, like a light cloak worn when traveling and removed when returning home.

“’M tired,” she mumbles against his shirt. Solas laughs as he rises to his feet, but the sound cracks halfway through.

“Sleep, then, da’len. I will keep you safe.”

She murmurs an agreement, pressing Tusky into his free hand and wrapping her arms around his neck. She rests her head on his shoulder, shifting several times, but once she is comfortable, she falls asleep within minutes.

Her breath tickles his skin.

When he returns to the seamstress’s tent, Surana is paying for her fabrics. She stuffs bundles of fur into her basket, along with some yards of fabric. “Welcome back,” she says, softly. “How are you?”

“I am well,” Solas says. Surana thanks the seamstress, Solas puts Tusky in her basket, and they set off for the cottage.

Now that the girl is asleep, Solas can return to the true task at hand. “What news?” he asks.

“Well, for one, Skyhold’s eluvian is still intact,” says Surana. “Dorian Pavus apparently said, ‘No doubt his spies are using it for their own nefarious ends, but it is useful to have around.’ Problem is, Elan Ve’mal won’t be able to use it anymore.”

“Why?”

“So you remember how you wanted those Exalted Council reports? Um. Cassandra Pentaghast annulled the Inquisition. It was all very straightforward. She basically came in, thanked the Council members for coming, declared the Inquisition abolished, and walked out. Soon after, Magister Pavus reportedly set off for Tevinter.”

“I want eyes in his household,” he says. “Bribe his slaves, if you can. If not, find an agent willing to infiltrate.”

“Magister Pavus freed his slaves weeks ago,” Surana says. “The servant we asked was very loyal to him because of it. And she told the Magister that she’d been approached. He’ll be on the alert.”

Solas sighs. “Give it time, then. Is there any way to track the Seeker’s movements?”

“Not if she’s working on the Seekers all alone, no.”

“And the other members of the Inquisitor’s Inner Circle?”

“First Enchanter Vivienne’s returned to Empress Celene’s court, and it seems they’re working with the Divine to unite the human leaders against us. Marquise Briala is also working underground against us, trying to convince the elves in Orlais that political progress is the best way forward. Viscount Tethras is focusing on fixing Kirkwall, but he may attempt to rally the Free Marches later. King Alistair and Queen Anora are currently working with the Bann of Denerim, as a way to ‘prove’ that humans care about the elves.”

Solas shakes his head. A valiant attempt, but ultimately doomed. The People had suffered too much for too long to subsist on half-recognized promises, especially those that came from humans. “Speaking of, have we made any progress with Miss Tabris?”

“Nope. We’re working on it, though. Our agent has convinced about a fifth of the alienage, and they’re putting pressure on the Bann to join us.”

Solas nods. He glances at the slumbering girl in his arms out of the corner of his eye. “There’s something else, Boss,” says Surana. He inclines his head, indicating that he is listening, but does not move his gaze from his daughter’s peaceful, sleeping face.

He holds her closer and looks back at Surana, who is staring straight ahead.

“The Divine has decreed that the Inquisitor have a three-day-long public wake next week, so all may come and see her before she is put to rest. At behest of Marquise Briala and Empress Celene, she will be buried in Var Bellanaris. Several Dalish clans have indicated that they will plant trees for her at the next Arlathvhen.”

“So much effort for one woman,” he says, softly. His tone is more skeptical than he’d like. This sounds like another publicity stunt to earn the goodwill of the elves. The sentiment of it rings hollow, and leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

Ellana deserved better than the false fineries the humans put upon her.

She had deserved better than many things in her life.

Surana half-smiles. “She was beloved.”

Three words restore his faith.

“Yes.” Solas turns away from Surana and exhales, quietly. “She was.”

When Surana turns her attention to the roads around them, eyes peeled for evidence of fresh wildflowers to bring to the cottage, Solas allows himself to return his gaze to his daughter. He charts every freckle on her skin, every curve of her face, every errant strand of red-gold hair.

When they reach the cottage, Solas carefully—carefully—places his daughter on his bedspread. He finds her blankets and unfolds one, tucking it under her and keeping her warm. He lingers long after she is tucked in, his fingertips drumming softly against the duvet.

In the end, he allows himself one touch upon her brow. Solas smoothes red hair from her forehead and marvels at her skin’s softness.

One touch.

Then he retreats from the room, his heart hammering as if he has just survived a hard-fought battle.

Surana has gone to the well, to fetch water for the dishes. Solas sits at the table, reads reports, and issues orders to be delivered to drops upon the morn. When the work is finished, he goes into the garden in the backyard and watches the sun set.

The smell of cooking wafts from the open windows, and when Solas returns, he says, “I will be attending her wake.”

“Okay,” Surana says, without missing a beat. She pinches salt into a pan. “What do you want me to tell Siona?”

Solas swallows, looks away. “Tell her I am on a journey,” he says. “I will be back in three days after the wake. I will also attend to business while I am in Orlais.”

“Gotcha, Boss,” Surana says. Solas walks past his bedroom and glances inside through the crack of the slightly ajar door.

The girl still sleeps. The rise and fall of her torso is such a small, delicate thing. Something trembles inside Solas’s chest. He looks away, clasping his hands behind his back, and returns to the kitchen.

* * *

It had been laughably easy to get into the Winter Palace on the third day of the wake. A simple matter of the right barrier, and the right timing, and a few well-used _forgets._ An agent had pointed him to the room holding the Inquisitor.

So here he stands, watching sunlight shine upon a coffin. He has not been able to move since he closed the door behind him five minutes ago.

Solas takes a deep breath and strides forward.

Ellana’s coffin has no lid. The wood is a gleaming black, so polished Solas can see parts of his own reflection in its finish. The ends of it are curved like an aravel, and on the sides the Inquisition eye is painted in white and gold. From the outside, it is the coffin of the Inquisitor, the holy Herald of Andraste.

But the inside is a different story. Her gown is ivory, Dalish in design, with leather greaves for her bodice. A lace cloak covers her shoulders, and hides the stump of her left arm. Her right hand is crossed over her stomach. She is pale, every inch of her, but for the fiery gold of her hair that fans around her head. White carnation blossoms are sprinkled in her hair.

Even in death, she is beautiful, but the stillness unsettles him.

“My heart,” he whispers, staring down at her face. Tears prick his eyes, hot and insistent, but he ignores them as he traces the curve of her cheekbone with the pad of his thumb. “I am so sorry.”

A purple crystal rests over her heart, the only piece of jewelry she wears. Solas recalls it hanging from her neck in the Crossroads, remembers how Dorian had shouted through the necklace before Ellana asked him to care for Siona.

Before he goes, he carefully cuts the leather cord around her neck, winding the severed ends around his hand. When her throat is bare, he pulls his wolf-jaw necklace over his head and regards it in the sunlight.

A gift from Mythal, pressed into his hands as she lay dying. As she had gasped, _My wolf, you must save them. Save the People._ A gift to remind him of his duty, but the only thing it reminds him of is his love for this one, remarkable woman.

He does not try to muss her hair by draping it over her head. Instead, he lifts her cool hand, and tucks the necklace under it, resting it over her stomach. Before he drops her hand, he turns her wrist and kisses her lifeless palm. “I am so sorry,” he repeats to the silence, Elvhen spilling from his lips.

When he blinks, the tears glazing his eyes spill. He ignores the hot wetness on his cheeks to kiss her palm again, and again, until he is gripping her hand and weeping. “My heart, I am so sorry. You deserved better than this fate. You deserved better than my love. I am sorry, I am sorry, my touch is a ruinous thing. It could not spare even you, the one most deserving of life.”

“Forgive me,” he whispers to her corpse. She is so quiet, and so still, her expression peaceful and relieved all at once.

The relief tucked into her small smile haunts him.

Had she wanted to die? Had his beating heart, so vibrant and bright, resigned herself to her fate when she stepped through the eluvian?

No. Above all, Ellana had loved life. He refuses to believe that their two years apart had changed such a vital part of her. To dwell on the alternative—

The words leave him before he can stop himself. “I do not know how to care for the child,” he says, struggling to swallow the lump in his throat. His left hand cradles her palm and the other clutches her coffin. “I do not know how to comfort her. I do not know what to say when she has nightmares, I do not even know her favorite color. How could you think I could be her father, vhenan? What made you believe I was a better choice to raise her than Dorian, or Cullen, or even Varric?”

She does not respond, of course. She does not open her eyes, smile, and say, _Vhenan, I had the strangest dream_. She does not enlighten him with answers on how best to make Siona smile or laugh. His heart is still, and pale, and the relief in the faint curl of her smile—he can just make out her dimples, etched in the corner of her cheeks—devastates him.

He is wasting time, speaking to a corpse, as if it will listen. Even the notion that her spirit may press upon the Veil to observe him is a vain hope. He is alone again, as he’d known he would be, and he must carry on.

He has lingered here long enough.

He places her limp hand over his jawbone, curling her fingers over its teeth, and readjusts his hold on Dorian’s amulet. He stands beside her coffin, but his legs do not move. At last, he sighs, and allows himself the small comfort of tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. He brushes his thumb against her cheekbone and swallows hard.

“My love,” he says. He cannot stop himself from leaning forward and kissing her forehead. “I will never forget you.”

The door slams in the hallway, pulling him from his thoughts. “Where is he, Cole?” Dorian shouts, furious, and even from here Solas can taste the smoky ozone that accompanies the Altus’s magic.

Solas freezes, and instinctively looks for a place to hide. It would be a simple matter, to rid himself of Dorian Pavus: he is already rallying Tevinter, and the nation’s magical genius is the last hope Thedas has, however paltry.

But he remembers discussions of magical theory over chess. He remembers books tossed from the balcony above, with notes that had pointed to a particular passage and asked, ‘What do you think of this?’. He remembers Dorian clapping him on the shoulder on the way to Halamshiral, looking over the uniform, and declaring, ‘Why, perhaps there’s hope for you yet.’

That had been before the hat. Dorian had spoken to him once that night, and it had been to tell Solas that he had been wrong.

“He may prove me wrong,” Cole says, and the door opens just as Solas slips into a dark niche behind a statue of a lion. “I treasure that chance, my friend.”

“Thank you, Cole, that’s quite helpful.” From the shadows, Solas watches Dorian walk to Ellana’s casket and peer over the edge of it. His expression darkens as he sees the jawbone necklace. “Vishante kaffas, Solas. As if your sentimentality changes _anything_ , you bastard. Perhaps, were she alive, you wouldn’t be so conflicted about your feelings!”

Cole glances at him, and Solas shakes his head. The spirit looks away and fiddles with his patched sleeve. “I know I’m not supposed to talk about the hurt when there are people around,” he says. “There was just so _much_ of it, the bitter mixing with the sweet. I’m sorry, Dorian.”

Ah. So Cole had picked up on his thoughts in Dorian’s presence. Solas should have expected such a thing. In the future, he will make preparations to counter the boy’s abilities.

“I won’t do it again,” Cole assures, and his gaze flashes to Solas. Subtlety had never been his strong suit.

Dorian sighs, and rests his hands on the edge of Ellana’s coffin. “Well, there’s nothing to do about it now,” he mutters, his features softening from anger to something akin to remorse.

Cole reaches for him. Dorian allows the spirit to place a hand on his shoulder and hangs his head. “I’m still furious with you about that stunt you pulled in Skyhold,” the Altus says, without any true heat.

Cole nods. “I know. But Sia misses you, too.”

“Is she safe?”

He nods again, the brim of his hat flopping with the movement.

Dorian’s shoulders drop with his tired sigh, and he runs a hand down his face. “Good,” he replies, something heavy in his voice. He stares at Ellana and shakes his head. “All right, my love. I’ll be back in ten minutes with your honor guard. One last adventure together. Enjoy me while you can.”

He swallows, thickly, and leaves.

Solas lingers long after the Tevinter is gone, if only because he is curious about this ‘honor guard.’

When the door opens, four people enter the room: Dorian, Cassandra, Varric, and Josephine. All are dressed in black.

Josephine pulls a handkerchief out of her sleeve and delicately dabs at the corner of her eyes. “Dalish has agreed to see to the rites,” she says. “She and the Chargers will accompany the procession to Var Bellanaris, and participate in our vigil. Are we ready?”

“Ready as we’ll ever be, Ruffles,” Varric says. Josephine turns toward the door, nodding, and four Orlesian soldiers enter the room. They go to each corner of the coffin and, as one, lifts it onto their shoulders.

Solas waits until the room is empty. Then, with a whisper, he casts a deflecting barrier over himself and steals out of the Winter Palace. No one spares him a second glance, not even when he is in the dirtied streets of Halamshiral.

He leaves the city, and, once he finds the nearest stretch of trees, shifts into a wolf. When the transformation is complete, he shakes out his fur and runs southeast, toward the Exalted Plains.

He reaches Var Bellanaris two hours before sunset. The burial grounds are quiet and still, the graves untouched, the tomb unspoiled. One grave has been dug, a scarring of dark earth against the verdant grass surrounding it. He finds a shadow of a tree near the grave, and waits.

They arrive at midnight.

He hears the procession before he sees it: the air is filled by the creaking of a hearse’s wheels and the clacks of horse hooves against the stony path. But the night is dark, so dark the air is indistinguishable from his fur.

Dorian and Cassandra are the first ones to enter the sacred ground. They carry candles as they walk to Ellana’s grave, and the flames splash red on their cheeks and throats. The Orlesians follow them, and behind them Josephine, Varric, Bull, and the Chargers.

A small funeral, in truth. She deserved better.

She had always deserved better.

He sees a hat in the corner of his eye, and when he turns his head, it’s to see Cole settling beside him. But the spirit says nothing, and Solas returns his attention to the funeral. The Orlesians are silent as they lower the coffin into the ground. When the task is complete, they salute the Inquisitor, bowing deeply at the waist.

When they, too, join the two lines on either side of the grave, Dalish pulls away from the Chargers to approach the grave. She carries a staff in one hand, and a wild branch in another. She stops in front of the grave, and her Elvhen is low, almost inaudbile.

A prayer, Solas realizes.

“O Falon’Din, friend of the dead, guide her feet, calm her soul, lead her to her rest.”

Solas swallows a hard knot of anger (that they should pray to _Falon’Din_ of all the Evanuris) and watches Dalish place the staff and branch at Ellana’s side. She steps back, and four Chargers approach with shovels. They fill in the grave, until there is nothing left but a shallow hill of dirt.

Bull enters the burial ground, and places a marker over her grave. Krem hands Dalish her staff, and she slams it into the ground. A thousand orbs stream from her focusing crystal, lighting the group in a half-circle of gold.

“And so the vigil begins,” Dalish announces, solemnly. “We watch over you until dawn. Dareth shiral, lethallan.”

 

Afterward, Solas does not move, not until the birds herald in the morning with songs. The others had left twenty minutes ago, yet he cannot bring himself to approach Ellana’s grave. Cole remains by his side, silent save for the tap of his foot against the grass.

“She wasn’t relieved that she was leaving,” Cole says at last. Solas sighs, hanging his head. For all his mental shields, the boy still finds ways past his defenses. “She was relieved that you healed the pain. The Anchor was hurting her.”

Solas’s exhale is long, and he feels his shoulders slump when it is over. “Thank you, Cole,” he says, simply.

“Go,” Cole replies. The next moment, he is gone.

Even with the spirit’s encouragement, Solas does not rise until the dewy grass’ chill sinks through his clothes. Solas stands up and clasps his hands behind his back, locking his jaw as he approaches the grave.

The oak sapling behind the stone is so thin and fragile, any man could snap it with a twist of his wrist. They should have given her an older plant, one that was certain to survive the winter. And her grave marker is a deceptively simple thing.

_Ellana Lavellan, Hero of Thedas._

Five words. Five words is all the recognition history will grant her.

“Ir abelas, vhenan,” Solas whispers, and he apologizes for many more things than her paltry epitaph. He sits before her grave and brushes his fingertips across her name, engraved in cold rock. He presses the flat of his hand against _Ellana_. “Ir abelas.”

He does not get up for a long time afterward.


End file.
